Albertans with questions about the curriculum can phone in to two town halls next week. After that, Eggen will formally approve the changes and they will be tested in select classrooms in 2019 with an eye to implementing them provincewide in 2020.

It is the first phase of a broader curriculum review and rewrite encompassing all grades.

Indigenous culture will be woven through subjects – from learning about Aboriginal art forms to studying First Nations viewpoints on historical events in social studies class.

Francophone perspectives will also be incorporated.

Watch below: The latest draft of Alberta’s new kindergarten to Grade 4 curriculum was released Wednesday. Tom Vernon has a look at what’s changing, being added and focused on.

Greg Jeffery, head of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said more than 300 of the union’s members have worked on the changes, and teachers will be able to handle the workload as long as it’s rolled out effectively.

Jeffery said teachers need to have new resources available across the board given the subjects are more integrated.

“I experienced that once in my career, when I taught Grade 9 mathematics until November before I had any resources. I was creating things every day, and teachers should not be asked to do that,” said Jeffery.

The curriculum change is a politically contentious issue.

With an election coming in the spring, Opposition United Conservative Leader Jason Kenney said he will put the revamp in the “shredder” if it strays too far from learning fundamentals.

The party said in a statement that it is still reviewing the new K-4 curriculum and is concerned about how it was put together.

“The curriculum rewrite has been shrouded in secrecy with (Eggen) refusing to tell Albertans which professors and special interest groups have been invited to the curriculum rewrite table,” said caucus spokeswoman Christine Myatt.

“The public has a right to know which external stakeholders are helping to write this curriculum.”